Indian Crypto Exchange Koinex Closing Operations

Indian crypto exchange Koinex shut down its operations in India under pressure from regulators after 14 months of extremely difficult operating conditions for digital assets exchange business in India. All trading platforms of the exchange were suspended at 2 PM IST yesterday.

Koinex said all open orders after the deadline will be automatically canceled and the funds will be returned to corresponding wallets. It asked users to withdraw all their digital assets from Koinex at the earliest. Digital assets withdrawal deadline is 9 PM IST, July 15, 2019,

Additionally, the exchange will start releasing all INR balances to the users registered bank accounts once the trading is suspended. The process is expected to be completed in 5 weeks.

The multi-crypto exchange had provided flexibility to trade in INR and TUSD markets, with support for 32 types of digital assets, offering more than 40 trading pairs.

The prevailing unfavorable environment for dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum has made it costly for an exchange to operate in India.

In July last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had banned the country’s commercial banks from providing services to businesses and individuals dealing in cryptocurrencies.

To bypass the RBI ban, Koinex launched a peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange platform called Koinex Loop immediately after the ban came into effect.

Many Indian cryptocurrency exchanges have been trying to obviate the difficulties associated with the RBI ban by either introducing a peer-to-peer facility, shifting base from India, or closing down operations.